A Little Bit About Free the Children

Free the Children

One April morning in 1995, twelve-year-old, Craig Kielburger, was flipping through the pages of the Toronto Starnewspaper when he was suddenly struck by an article about the murder of a Pakistani boy named Iqbal Masih. The boy was a factory worker who had brutally spent six years of his life chained to a carpet weaving loom. After a hard battle to speak out against child labour in his country, Iqbal was murdered at the young age of twelve. This inspired Kielburger to gather a few of his grade-seven classmates and create Free the Children. With the powerful message to free children of poverty, exploitation and the belief that they are powerless to create positive change, Free the Children now has over one million youth involved in innovative education and development programs in over 45 countries. This organization empowers, engages and educates youth in developed countries to be the change needed to support the youth in developing countries. Today, Free the Children is now the largest network of children helping children through education.

Miss Teen Canada -World and Free the Children

Miss Teen Canada-World supports FTC

As I may have mentioned before, Miss Teen Canada-World has a charitable alliance with Free the Children. As a prerequisites into the final pageant, each delegate is required to raise a minimum of $400 for Free the Children. The winner of MTC-W and the delegate who raises the most money for her Free the Children fundraiser are awarded a trip to Kenya. Last year, the MTC-W delegates collectively raised a total of $73,000 for the cause and over $49,000 the year before that. With that said, I hope we can surpass our goal again and raise even more for 2011!

A Little Bit About Me To We

Me to We is Free the Children's one of many partners

Me to We is an innovative social enterprise co-founded by Craig Keilburger and his brother Mark which offers goods and services such as sweatshop-free clothes, books and music. They also offer socially conscious media, environmentally friendly products, motivational speakers, leadership training and traveling experiences. Me to We’s believes in taking today’s average consumer and transforming them into world changers. Me to We uses the best of business practices and charitable impact and brings them together to create a better way of life. Me to We encourages people of all ages to adopt the lifestyle change that needs to be made in order to create a more just and humane world today. Here are some of the environmental and social impacts which Me to We has made possible last year:

Planted more than 92,000 trees to ensure environmental sustainability.

Inspired 275,000 people through speeches, books, leadership programs and workshops.

Made it possible for 1,300 people to donate 145,600 hours of volunteer services on life-changing Me to We trips to developing countries.

And it doesn’t end there! This social enterprise is also a close partner to…Free the Children!

Me to We’s Best Friend: Free the Children

Free the Children and Me to We emerged together through the philosophy that the choices we make everyday can change the world. Like Free the Children, Me to We wishes to make a positive change. Me to We has developed an effective model for creating the social change needed today by using the same ideology as Free the Children. Almost everything Me to We does is in support of Free The Children’s projects at home and even abroad. Me to We holds trips with volunteers to build schools and also present speakers and leadership facilitators to spread the message for positive actions and global change.

Me to We also shows great support for the work of their charitable partner by donating half of their net profit to Free the Children. Last year alone, Me to We donated $1 million to Free the Children! The donations from Me to We are used to help offset expenses such as Free the Children’s administrative costs. By gradually lowering these costs, Me to We hopes that in a few years, every dollar raised for Free the Children will 100% go directly towards the projects they are working to support. Me to We hopes to create the social movement needed to inspire the same beliefs which Free the Children encourages. One benefits from the other by having the same ideology and through mutual support.

Me to We Style

I highly suggest checking out Me to We Style. They have an incredibly cute selection of clothing for both men and women. One of my sponsors, Nature’s Emporium, supports Me to We Style by selling some of their cute, environmentally friendly and sweatshop free apparel. They also donated a Me to We t-shirt for my fundraising raffle for Free the Children! For a their promotional event, they also purchased custom Me to We promotional t-shirts for the employees. See how easy it is to get involved with this new social change?

Me to We Style attire also follows a strict process to produce its ethical clothing line. The cotton is organic and grown by farmers in ethical working conditions. There are no synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, insecticides used either. Less water is also used to grow the cotton because organic soil retains more water than non-organic soil. The cotton is processed and spun in a clean facilities and then imported into Canada. The cottons are turned into yarn, dyed with environmentally friends dyes and made into clothing by Canadian workers. The best part…Me to We clothing is made in Canada and 50% of the the sales go to Free the Children!

One of many t-shirts sold in the Me to We Style store

And So…

Now you know about one of Free the Children’s biggest corporate partners. I believe Me to We is a very creative enterprise which supports positive ideals that should be encompassed in everybody’s day-to-day lives. Free the Children is also an important charity which I believe the youth of today needs to carryout a positive influence on the world. Together, Me to We and Free the Children can create something big (bigger than what it is now) and can truly create the positive change we all wish to see happen in the world today.

Wow! How did you find my blog on Yahoo News? I wasn’t even aware. I’ve just been posting my blog on twitter and facebook as much as I can and I’ve tagged my posts with as many relevant things as possible. I also try to post as often as I can. I hope you make it on there too!

Simply wish to say your article is as surprising. The clarity in your post is just nice and i can assume you are an expert on this subject. Fine with your permission let me to grab your RSS feed to keep updated with forthcoming post. Thanks a million and please carry on the rewarding work.